World Tank League is a personal project (one of many) that I pick away at when I have time. I hope to one day have a wildly popular game, but mostly enjoy talking with players, solving problems, and building something that isn’t subject to the deadlines and compromises I face in my day job as a software developer.
I was recently re-reading Christopher Alexander’s A Pattern Language, which he wrote in the 1970’s as a catalog of recipes for implementing his architectural philosophy. I understand from architect friends that Alexander was required reading for architecture students for many years, and that he is revered and reviled in equal measures in his field. I was first exposed to his work as the inspiration for another book, Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software, which has had a major impact onthe field of software engineering.
More than forty years since its publication, A Pattern Language is like reading well-aged science fiction–equal measures of prescience, wisdom, and things that turned out to be completely wrong. I love it for its breadth (Alexander covers everything from how big a city should be to where to place chairs in your living room) and for the way he weaves advice about how to live with advice about where we live.
In pattern 156 Settled Work, Alexander suggests that we start developing a productive avocation for later life, long before we actually retire. Within that he says “… make the workshop open to the street, a part of local street life …” I live on a dead-end street with very little life, so I have decided to go with the modern equivalent and write an occasional blog about World Tank League and other projects I am working on.